For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education (Race, Education, and Democracy)

by Christopher Emdin

To assist in the process of identifying the “opposites” necessary for cogens, teachers might dedicate a notebook to their observations of the unique demographics in the classroom, as a path to understanding the various connections among students. I suggest that teachers create lists of categories from their first day in the classroom and continue to build these lists as the school year develops. The development of these lists should occur with a goal of uncovering as many variations as possible among students, which in turn allows the teacher to understand and appreciate the dynamic nature of the classroom. Furthermore, engaging in this process allows the teacher to tailor instruction to the individual students in the classroom rather than teaching to a generic “urban student.”